I was mostly familiar with laws that required porn companies to verify their user's age. That is a lot more targeted and less offensive than UK Online Safety Act Regulations IMO. I mean it's already illegal to distribute porn to minors - that's just requiring them to enforce it at the expense of porn watcher's anonymity. Whereas the UK Online Safety Act is more like a backdoor for content moderation across the internet.
The online safety act being a more well thought out step on this slippery slope doesn’t mean it isn’t leading to the same horrible end. We are just rearranging deck chairs on the titanic.
We can't even get American companies to take a stand against authoritarianism in their own country.
why would they? This is great for the large media corps:
- Increases barrier to entry for smaller competitors
- Reliable user data (age, race, who knows what else) derived from video age verification
Anecdote:
My mom recently visited Spain. The process of buying a local SIM card was as follows:
• Show your US passport at a major local cellular provider’s store (Movistar) to have its number associated with the SIM.
• During SIM activation, open a browser page that accesses the phone’s camera.
• Scan the first page of your passport.
• Point the selfie camera at your face, then close your eyes and smile when prompted.
> then close your eyes and smile when prompted
I was about to ask about this, but then I realized it must so that you can't just point it at a photo of someone.
The UK law is significantly less stringent and better thought out than equivalent age verification laws already in place in a bunch of US states....
I think those age verification laws don't target as many sites though, right? not Wikipedia at least
Ah yes, what about the US.
Which law are you talking about by the way?
I was mostly familiar with laws that required porn companies to verify their user's age. That is a lot more targeted and less offensive than UK Online Safety Act Regulations IMO. I mean it's already illegal to distribute porn to minors - that's just requiring them to enforce it at the expense of porn watcher's anonymity. Whereas the UK Online Safety Act is more like a backdoor for content moderation across the internet.
The online safety act being a more well thought out step on this slippery slope doesn’t mean it isn’t leading to the same horrible end. We are just rearranging deck chairs on the titanic.